The Investigation
by TrueHound
Summary: When Chase starts acting weird, Rocky goes after him in an effort to be helpful. Before long, they're both in way over their heads, and they can't trust anyone, not even their closest friends. And not everything is what it seems to be.
1. Chapter 1

_**M:**_ **Hello all, I'm back again**

 **I'm sorry for not updating TCatR or PAW-Patrol Holiday Short Stories, but I have my reasons. TCatR is still a little in flux, and I'm limiting HSS to Christmas.**

 **But I feel like I owe you something, I figured this would be nice, besides, I wanted to practise with day and time, as well as flashbacks. I think this turned out pretty well, what says you?**

 **I'll upload this in two pieces, this is the first part, the second will come in two weeks time.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

\- Tuesday, 1 pm –

My name is Chase Trigger, I'm a member of the PAW-Patrol, and well… I think I'm in love. No, I'm sure of it. What I'm feeling is more than just a crush, it IS love. For the first time in my life, there was someone I'd do anything for. Someone who meant more to me than anything. Sometimes I curse myself for these feelings, why couldn't I just be in love with Skye, like I pretended to be for years? I would go day in, day out pretending that I had a sweet spot for her, I even convinced my best friend Marshall of it, but at the end of the day, when I went to sleep, there was someone else haunting my dreams. There were thousands of female pups around the world, and I had to fall for a male one, typically my luck. Yes, I am gay, and yes, no one knows. Which is why I've made the decision to do what I've done. The PAW-Patrol is a beautiful institution, and it shouldn't have to suffer a leader that's so hopelessly in love with someone who'll never return those feelings. I came upon this realisation earlier today, thanks to my friends, my former teammates.

Now for the important things:

Skye, I'm sorry for misleading you like that. I naturally feel sorry for deceiving the others, but it was more personal to you than anyone else. So for that, I'm sorry, and I hope you find someone who really loves you.

Ryder, I'd advice you to make Marshall your new second in command, since that position is now empty.

With that, I'd like to conclude this letter, and thank you for the time I spent with you, with this family. I thank you for everything we shared, every chance we had to grow. I thank you for each lesson that we learned. I'll take the best of them and live by their example; wherever I go.

Yours sincerely,

Chase Trigger, Ex-PAW-Patroller

As Ryder looked up from the paper at his guilty-faced pups, there was only one thought in his head, and one thing he said:

"What the hell happened?!"

\- 24 hours earlier -

Zuma, Marshall, Chase and Rocky were playing frisbee outside, while Rubble and Sky were facing off against each other at Pup Pup boogie. Ryder was leaning on the balcony's fence on top of the lookout as he watched his pups play.

"Hey Chase, catch" Zuma shouted at the shepherd, who was so deep in thought that he missed the frisbee and it hit him right in the head.

"AH!" Chase yelled as he was knocked back.

"Chase, you alright?" Marshall asked as he approached Chase. "You seem to be a bit distracted"

"I'm fine, nothing for you to worry about" Chase said as he walked towards the lookout. "I need to check on something, why don't you keep playing"

Marshall picked the frisbee back up and tossed it at Zuma, the dalmatian knew that if Chase didn't want to talk about something, he wouldn't talk about it. Rocky, however, also left the game, since he hadn't learned that lesson.

"Wocky! Whewe awe you going?" Zuma shouted

"I'm going to check up on Chase" Rocky shouted back over his shoulder. "You two should just keep playing"

Rocky then entered the lookout and called the elevator. The lookout has four floors: the ground floor where Rocky was now, the middle floor that housed the locker-room with their equipment, the top floor with the briefing room, and the basement. Considering Chase might want some time alone to think, he wouldn't go to the top floor, that's where Ryder was. Although he means well, Ryder can sometimes be the opposite of helpful with emotional issues. Marshall and Zuma may not have seen it, but Rocky believed Chase to be in trouble, or something. So that's why he was following the shepherd, to avoid something bad from happening.

Knowing the locker-room was literally in the centre of the lookout, Rocky guessed that Chase had gone to the basement, where each of the pups had a small room. Rocky's room was like a miniature lab to run his experiments, while Rubble had made his a shrine to Apollo the super pup. Rocky had never seen Chase's room, part of him thought it to be just a simple storage unit, since the shepherd was never there.

As the elevator arrived, coming from downstairs, Rocky confirmed his suspicions. When the mix entered and pressed the button for the basement, he noticed that the panel with buttons was a little loose, and he made a mental note to fix it later, now he had more urgent matters to attend to.

When he reached the basement, he took a left turn towards Chase's unit. It had been years since he had designed this place, but he was still proud of the way it turned out. He had based the design on that of the upstairs pup houses, making an underground ring with rooms inside of it. This also allowed them to make each room the same size. When Rocky arrived at Chase's room, the door was unlocked.

"Hey Chase, you in there?" Rocky asked as he knocked. When no answer came, he opened the door, and looked inside. Considering that this was his first time there, he didn't know how organized it usually was, but the mess came as a surprise anyway. He saw Chase sitting at a desk with his back to the door, and headphones covering his ears. The shepherd was surrounded by paper, some were blueprints of the lookout, new and old, while others displayed detailed maps of the region. Rocky also spotted several brown folders, which bore the logos of several police departments, and even the FBI and DEA. When Rocky walked towards Chase, he saw that the shepherd was paying close attention to an informative video on several different forms of communication.

"Uhm Chase, what is all this?" Rocky asked, but due to the headphones, Chase still didn't notice him. That was until Rocky tapped him on the shoulder. As Chase threw down his headphones and turned around, Rocky could read both shock and anger on the shepherd's face.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" he shouted at a terrified Rocky.

"I-I went to see if you were alright" Rocky said "What's all this?"

"Uhm…" Chase said as he walked past Rocky towards the door. "Can I trust you?"

"Well, I know we haven't always been the best of friends, but I am one of your teammates, and that implies that you can trust me" Rocky said "Besides, after seeing all this, you really think I won't figure out what you're doing?"

"Fair point" Chase said as he closed the door, revealing a whiteboard on its back that Rocky hadn't seen yet, with a picture of each of the residents of Adventure Bay, including the members of the PAW-Patrol. "Two weeks ago, I received a call from DEA agent Patrick Stride, asking for a meeting with me, something about a drug network based in the major cities surrounding Adventure Bay. When I asked further, he told me he couldn't say anything more over the phone"

"What did he tell you?" Rocky asked

"Nothing, he never made it here" Chase responded as he took one of the DEA files. When he opened it, Rocky realized it to be a personnel file. But the photo attached to it seemed to be very familiar. "He was the guy that died in the car crash"

"That's where I knew him from" Rocky said "We were both accompanying Ryder there on the mission"

"Ever since I've tried to piece together why that DEA agent wanted to speak with me, but I can't trust anyone" Chase said as he walked to another table filled with paper.

"Why is that?" Rocky asked "Does it have something to do with this board?" Rocky asked as he stared at his own picture, cut from a group photo Ryder and the pups once took.

"I know the detective on the case, he still owed me a favour" Chase said "So I asked him for a copy of the file that the DEA agent had brought with him. It was about the criminal syndicate running the major cities around here, and agent Stride believed they'd infiltrate Adventure Bay next. Unfortunately, I fear they already have. Not only was the agent killed here, the cities completely under the control of this syndicate have direct roads leading to Adventure Bay. I think that their leadership resides here, and is hiding in plain sight"

"Seriously?!" Rocky asked "Who do you think it could be?"

"Anyone on the board" Chase replied "From the mayor to even Ryder"

"You think Ryder would be capable of this?" Rocky asked "I mean, he founded the PAW-Patrol, an organization to protect people"

"I know, but it shows he has the skills to create another organization, which would be less kind-hearted" Chase replied "Right now, everyone is a suspect, except the two of us"

"Why do you believe I'm innocent?" Rocky asked "Don't you think I'd be smart enough?"

"Oh trust me, that's not it. If you'd turn to the dark side, you could rule the world" Chase said chuckling, before continuing. "But I now trust you, because if you were part of the syndicate, you would have killed me by now, and made it look like an accident. And it does feel nice to trust someone again"

"That's nice, Chase" Rocky said "So what's our plan of attack?"

"We'll need to investigate everyone, including the PAW-Patrol" Chase said "Who has the skills to run the syndicate, who is hiding something, and how do they actually run it"

"Speaking of secrets, you know what I've always wondered?" Rocky asked "How a ten-year-old acquired the money to create a rescue team"

"You think Ryder is a suspect?" Chase asked as he too looked at the board.

"No, but if we need to investigate people's secrets, we might as well start at home" Rocky said "Do you have any coffee?"

* * *

\- Monday, 6 pm –

Rocky and Chase were both working in Chase's room, this time with the door locked, and the important files and other things stuffed away. Rocky was looking through several financial databases that he had hacked into, trying to figure out where the donation for the PAW-Patrol came from. All that Rocky had pieced together, so far, was that Ryder, a brilliant boy of 9 years old, was given 10 million dollars, along with a piece of land and a set of blueprints, all under the condition that he would form a rescue team of pups. By the time he reached his tenth birthday, he had founded the PAW-Patrol, and built the lookout according to the blueprints he received. Unfortunately, Rocky had traced to money to a shell corporation, which was funded by another shell corporation, and so on.

Chase, on the other hand, was working to figure out how the syndicate was commanded from a small town like Adventure Bay, but he had far less luck than Rocky. To run a syndicate like that, you had to have a room, at least, dedicated to that organization, but Chase couldn't find any such room. Considering that the only way to find it would be to analyse each building individually, it took Chase a lot of time and effort, without results. When he finally finished the blueprint of City Hall, he took a break and looked at the clock, surprised of how late it was.

"Rocky, it's almost dinnertime, we need to go before they miss us" Chase said as he rolled up the remainder of the blueprints and hid them in a drawer.

"Oh god, you're right!" Rocky said as he started to turn off his computer, but stopped upon reading something that just popped up on the screen. "Chase, I think I know where the money came from…"

"Huh? You found the source?" Chase asked as he walked to the computer. "Where did it come from…" he too lost his voice when he read what was on the screen.

"Seconds before the 7th shell corporation sent the 10 million, it received that same amount from someone's bank account" Rocky stated

"That someone is Henry Fickle, a dirty SEC accountant who has laundered money for cartels, and his skills helped to found the syndicate" Chase continued "The PAW-Patrol has been based on the suffering of others. It's all a lie"

"We need to go, Chase" Rocky said as he shut down the computer. "If someone donated 10 million to this place, they would have their reasons. I don't think we have countless suspects anymore"

"I'm afraid you're right" Chase said as he walked to the whiteboard, and took off most photos. "I fear we only have five left, and we're about to have dinner with them"

After cleaning up Chase's room, they left it carefully locked to go to the elevator. They got on it, and as Rocky pushed the button, he realized the panel had been fixed, and he thought Ryder would have done it while he was with Chase. It was only then that Rocky realized that that's exactly what the others were going to see if Chase and he arrived late at the same time, Rocky being with Chase, but in a totally different way than they had actually been.

As the elevator stopped at the ground floor, and the doors opened, all pups looked up from their bowls to look at the two pups.

"Hey dudes, had fun together?" Zuma asked with a grin.

"And you made me think you were into Skye" Marshall joked, also smiling.

 _I hate being right_

"Guys, it wasn't anything like that" Rocky proclaimed, before ignoring the others to chow down his food. Chase did the same, and during the entire meal, both of them looked at the others, with one constant thought in their heads:

 _Which one is it?_

* * *

\- Monday, 9 pm –

After finishing their meal, Rocky and Chase didn't want to give the others any reason to actually start believing that Rocky and Chase were a thing, so they both spent the evening playing with the other pups, until they both felt tired and left to their respective puphouses. Or at least, that's what they told the others. Both of them locked their puphouses and snuck down to the basement, to Chase's room, where they continued their work.

"So we have five suspects: Ryder, Marshall, Zuma, Skye and Rubble" Rocky stated as he and Chase were looking at the whiteboard. "How will we proceed?"

"We need to trace their footsteps, to find out where they were around the time of the wire transfers. If they were around syndicate territory, we'll have our suspect" Chase said "You take Ryder, I'll start on Rubble"

"Good luck" Rocky said, before walking to the computer and looking into Ryder. He started by trying all the search engines, and then the social media of Ryder, his parents, and anyone they knew back then. After hours of searching and scrolling through some of the dumbest selfies imaginable, he finally found an old picture of Ryder sitting on a man's lap, while both were eating an ice-cream cone. They were sitting on a bench at the edge of Central Park, far away from the syndicate, and Rocky managed to check the date from the newspaper stall behind them on the other side of the street.

"Hey Chase, good news, Ryder isn't it!" Rocky said as he turned towards Chase, who then took Ryder's picture off the board. "How did you fare, did you find anything on Rubble?"

"Unfortunately, before joining the PAW-Patrol, Rubble didn't have any mobile devices, and neither did any of the other pups. I literally have no way to track them, they could've been on the moon for all I know" Chase said "But I did do one thing right, I managed to identify a major player within the syndicate, they call him the Ragger. He is a young golden retriever with fur dyed red and black. He has a claw mark scar over his right eye"

"And how does that help us?" Rocky asked

"It doesn't" Chase said "But he looks kind of cool"

"Then we have four suspects, and one of them could be a ruthless gang leader" Rocky said "And investigating them doesn't work"

"So what do we do?" Chase asked "Just sit here, while one of them uses us as cover?"

"No, we need to think out-of-the-box. So far, we've been investigating this by the book" Rocky said "And I think I have just the plan in mind"


	2. Chapter 2

**_M:_ Hello again, **

**Two weeks ago I posted the first part, and now I'm posting the second and final part.**

 **I must say that it took off better than I had expected, and I'm happier for it.**

 **I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

\- Tuesday, 7 am –

"GOOD MORNING EVERYONE" Chase yelled through the microphone, according to his daily morning routine.

"Ugh, one of these days I'll destroy that megaphone" Rocky grumbled as he crawled out of his puphouse. As all pups walked to breakfast, Ryder was waiting right by the bowls which he had already filled. All pups walked to their respective bowls, and they started to eat. Usually, Ryder would leave to get his own breakfast, but this time he walked over to Chase, and he pulled a paper file from behind his back and put it at Chase's paws, at which point the shepherd discovered it to be the DEA personnel file.

"When exactly were you going to tell me that the crash victim was a DEA agent?" Ryder asked Chase at a tone that wouldn't be considered friendly.

"When I had closed the case, sir, Ryder, sir" Chase said "I am investigating his death"

"It was an accidental car crash, nothing more" Ryder said "I am ordering you to stop wasting your time with this"

"But Ryder, sir, I am close! I almost have everything I need to bring down the killer! All the proof is downstairs, I could show you" Chase said, but as he tried to withstand Ryder's angry glare, he caved. "Yes, sir" the shepherd said with lowered ears before Ryder left to get his breakfast like he usually did. As the shepherd made his way to the elevator with the file, he snuck a quick glance at Rocky, whose face displayed the same amount of tension that Chase was feeling.

As Chase left, Rocky kept eating, like he had nothing to do with the file. When Chase returned, it happened to coincide with Rocky finishing his breakfast. The mix then cleared his throat, loudly.

"Everyone, I feel like I need to tell you something" Rocky said, having the attention of all the pups, and Ryder. "I have spent quite some time away from everyone to do some thinking, which is why I've been in the basement so often, to be alone with my thoughts. And I have reached a conclusion" Rocky said, before gulping down the tension growing in his stomach, and taking a deep breath. "I am gay"

Rocky didn't know how he anticipated the others to respond, but the remarks that came from Zuma, Skye and Marshall were the last things he expected.

"Not surprising" Skye replied

"About time you came out" Zuma said

"What they said" Marshall stated

"Wait, you knew?!" Rocky asked, his eyes filled with disbelief.

"Dude, you awe all about wecycling" Zuma said

"And I noticed you staring at Zuma's butt from time to time" Skye said

"He does what?" Zuma asked, while Rocky started to blush like crazy.

"S-So, you guys approve?" Rocky asked

"Of course we do" Ryder said as he petted the mix. "You are who you are, and you are our friend"

"Thanks, guys" Rocky replied, before turning to Marshall. "And, will you tell them about you?"

"What about me?" Marshall asked

"About you being bisexual?" Rocky asked

"WHAT?!" Marshall yelled "I'm not bisexual, or gay! In fact, I have a crush on-" he stopped just in time, swallowing the words that would have revealed his crush.

"On who?" Chase asked

After sighing deeply, Marshall replied. "On Everest"

"Well, I think you'd be vewy happy togethew" Zuma said

"Thanks, Zuma, I really appreciate it" Marshall said

"Hey guys, I'm going for a walk" Chase said with a complete lack of emotion on his face. "I'll be back shortly"

* * *

\- Tuesday, 1 pm –

Rocky spent most of the morning playing with Zuma, Marshall, Skye, and Rubble, who didn't tease him one bit about his coming out earlier, which the mix found comforting. By the time they were tired enough to sit down, they decided to go for an early lunch, which is when they found a letter lying on the floor of the dining room. After reading its contents, Zuma immediately called Ryder through his pup tag.

Once Ryder came down, Rocky handed him the letter, as Zuma had been vague about its contents. The pups watched intently as their leader read the letter about their co-leader resigning, and as Ryder looked up from it, and looked upon their guilty faces, his reaction was about what they had expected:

"What the hell happened?!" he asked

"W-Well, sir, he mentions that he loves a male pup, and that he reached a conclusion due to this morning's events" Rocky said "I think he may have been in love with Marshall, and today, he realized they would never be a couple, which is why he left"

"Well, go find him!" Ryder said "I want him back here, so I can say goodbye, at least"

"Yes, sir!" The pups yelled together before running to their puphouses which transformed into vehicles.

Each and every one of the pups was searching for Chase, Zuma down at the beach, Rocky in the city, Skye from the air, Marshall in the forest and Rubble by the mountains. Ryder was contributing by searching through the telescope. But they weren't acting as a team, they lacked the coordination that they usually prided themselves on. And this allowed one of the pups to sneak back into the lookout, to easily avoid Ryder and to go down to the basement, where there was believed to be a damning cache of evidence against the murderer of DEA agent Patrick Stride. And there was only one pup who would want to go there without being spotted, the pup who killed him and staged the car crash. The pup that funded the PAW-Patrol, the pup that was in charge of the syndicate, the one pup that had been hiding for so long. This pup walked back into the lookout, into the elevator, and pressed the button to go down. As the elevator doors closed and the elevator started to descend, the pup was calmness itself. When it stopped, the pup got out, turned left, and walked straight to Chase's room. The pup checked if the door was unlocked, which it wasn't, so the pup took a set of lockpicks out of the bag the pup was carrying. The pup picked the lock with ease, and once inside, surrounded by all the evidence, the pup took a jerrycan out of the same bag and started to douse the entire room in gasoline. Just as the pup took out a lighter, there came a voice from the door opening.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you"

As the pup turned around, there were two people standing in the door opening, both dressed in blue, FBI-labelled jackets, both aiming a gun at the pup. The pup then noticed two dogs standing behind the men, Chase and Rocky.

"Well, fancy meeting you here, Skye" Rocky said as he smiled at her. A smile that was as devilish as they came.

"I really can't believe it was you" Chase said "But then again, you did try to seduce me"

"Yeah, and I failed miserably" Skye replied "How on earth could I have missed the fact that you were a pillow-biter?"

"Oh, I'm not gay" Chase said, causing a look of surprise on Skye's face. "It was just a trick to make you believe you had an opportunity"

"But- but-" Skye started "But what about Marshall's confession?"

"That's where I came into play" Rocky said "You see, we needed an excuse for Chase to disappear so that we were scattered. Although my coming out was real, it was just part of an act. By me coming out, I could put serious pressure on Marshall, forcing him to confess his feelings towards Everest. This, in turn, gave the motive we needed for Chase to run away"

"Setting the trap itself was easy enough, we needed the bait, all this evidence" Chase said as he gestured at the tables around Skye. "It wasn't much harder for Rocky to make Ryder believe I was investigating the DEA Agent's death. He simply needed to play the worried friend. No, the trickiest part was to find backup that wasn't dirty. Luckily, my older brother the detective knew a few honest FBI agents from the New York field office, and with a simple, temporary reassignment, here they are, with the jurisdiction to arrest you. And now they'll do just that"

"Skye Blue, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…" the first FBI agent said as he took out his cuffs and cuffed the cockapoo.

"Come on Chase, let's go tell the others" Rocky said "That'll be fun"

\- Tuesday, 8 pm –

There Rocky sat, at the top of a cliff, overlooking all of Adventure Bay, he could barely make out the lookout in the weak light of the setting sun. As he sat there, he thought about the events of the past days. First, he discovered Chase's secret investigation, then he joined it. Later, due to his own plan, he was forced to come out, and it all ended in the arrest of one of his teammates.

"So tell me, did you ever figure out why Skye created the PAW-Patrol?" As Rocky turned around, he saw a young, red and black golden retriever approaching, who bore a claw mark scar on his face.

"Turns out, the site she had given to Ryder was right on top of an anti-nuclear bunker. The blueprints she had provided had the construction crew dig just deep enough to enable her to use the elevator to go down to it. She installed a secret operations centre in the bunker, with a single way to access it, a hidden switch behind the panel in the elevator" Rocky said "That's how she controlled the syndicate from this town"

"Well, that's interesting" the Ragger said "But the question is, will you use it?"

"Well, it is still secret, I stopped Chase from finding it" Rocky said "And considering that with her gone, the Syndicate's mine, I think I just might"

"She used it perfectly to rule the syndicate, and so could you" the Ragger said "Whatever you decide, I'm with you. You know that, right?"

"Of course I do" Rocky said as he kissed his mate. _And I'll always love you._

* * *

 ** _M:_ Sorry about the deception, and the lack of an actual pairing, but I do rather like how this story turned out. Any feedback or advice is always welcome, and I hope to see you all at the next story.**

 **Truehound, out**


End file.
